A man walks past an uncovered manhole in the Saidpur area of Patna. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, July 13: Risky roads with gaping manholes would soon be a thing of the past in the state capital. The state urban development department has recently entrusted Bihar Urban Development Agency (Buda) with the task of covering around 590 uncovered manholes and catchpits.

The authorities claim the decision has come following the apathetic attitude of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) in doing the same.

“It is only because of the corporation commissioner’s unwillingness that the work for covering the manholes and catchpits is pending since long. Private contractors are not ready to take up the work owing to pending payments. As a result, no contractor applied for the last tender issued by PMC for covering the manholes and catchpits,” said Patna mayor Afzal Imam.

Imam said this handover has been done following the intervention of the urban development department principal secretary. “The principal secretary arrived at this decision after a mutual agreement between the PMC and the urban development department according to which the task was handed over to the Buda engineering cell against a payment of Rs 20 lakh,” Imam added.

According to sources, there are four administrative circles or zones of PMC in the city — Bankipore, New Capital Circle, Kankerbagh and Patna City, which are dotted with uncovered manholes and ditches.

The lids of manholes are often left open after desiltation work or they get stolen.

Quite a few accidents take place in areas with such open manholes or ditches.

The Telegraph had earlier reported the problem of open manholes on main roads as well as internal roads of the capital. Yawning manholes are a common sight in the city, be it in posh areas like Bank Road, Anugrah Narayan Sinha Library Road, Boring Canal Road, Kadamkuan, Patliputra Road, Kankerbagh, the main road of Patna City or other internal roads. Meanwhile, stormwater drainage in low-lying areas of the city has run into rough weather with the long-pending Kankerbagh drainage project still stuck.

Sources said during a recent meeting at the urban development department, a delegate of National Building Construction Corporation had claimed the work on the drainage project has got stalled because of non-payment from PMC.

However, urban development department officials claimed the PMC commissioner has been provided the amount on June 15, 2011 and he has been asked to make the respective payments at the earliest.

The drainage cleaning work for Bakarganj canal is incomplete.

Also, the executive officers of all areas have been asked to undertake a daily survey of their areas on waterlogging and identify “major critical areas” before submitting the respective reports to the commissioner.